Absorbent articles such as diapers comprise normally one or more components that are elasticated, such as the leg cuffs or waistband. Other absorbent articles, that incorporate an elasticated component, are diapers that have a so-called elasticated anal and/or vaginal cuff. Such cuffs may for example be formed by a topsheet that has one or more large opening(s) to receive fecal material, and guide it to a void space, the topsheet having elastic strands along the opening(s) in the topsheet in order to position the aperture correctly against the wearer's skin such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,482,191. Also co-pending application EP-A-1201212 describes a preferred diaper with an elasticated anal and/or vaginal cuff; it is described that it is desirable to have elastics of a specific force profile, to provide the best alignment and fit of the diaper.
Such elastics may be bonded to a for example the topsheet of the absorbent article by use of adhesive or non-adhesive bonding methods, known in the art; for example, well-known methods therefore are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,461,430 and US2002/0119722.
The inventors have found that it is desirable that the elastics in such anal or vaginal cuff(s) of a diaper have low load force elastics, so that there are no pressure marks on the wearer's skin and the diapers are more comfortable to wear. The inventors also found that the preferred topsheet material is a material that is relatively stiff and/or that the material is for example a nonwoven material with a relatively high content of meltblown fibers. Namely, the preferred anal or vaginal cuff materials generally are air permeable and have high barrier properties. This is in a preferred execution achieved by a nonwoven material that has a low surface energy as well as a small pore size, such as composite nonwoven materials with a high meltblown content (e.g. 5 g/m2 or more), and which is by consequence stiff.
However, the inventors have found that the combination of low load force elastics and stiff carrier (topsheet) material is not always possible: the low force elastics are typically not capable to contract the stiff carrier material in the required way.
The present invention is directed to a way of enabling low load force elastics to contract stiff material. Namely, the inventors found that if the elastic strands are applied with a specific bonding pattern to the stiff carrier material, the low load force elastics are nevertheless capable of contracting the stiff material. Unlike the bonding patterns known in the art to bond elastics to other materials, such as the bonding pattern described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,461,430, the specific new bonding pattern is such that there are large open areas between the bonding areas. It is believed that the presence of these large open areas between the bonding areas allows the stiff carrier material to form ridges with a sufficiently large radius of curvature, preferably in more or less the direction of the stretch (e.g. ‘more or less’ being less than 45° away from the direction of stretch). Thus, the distance between two bonding areas needs to have a certain minimum size, which typically depends on the stiffness of the material, e.g. which becomes larger as the stiffness of the material increases.
Moreover, the specific bonding pattern reduces the random wrinkling of the carrier material, which results in a smoother elasticated material, providing thus more wearer's comfort, e.g. reduced pressure marks on the wearer's skin.
The elasticated carrier material is particularly useful as (part of) an anal or vaginal cuff of a diaper, but it may equally be used in other articles, or as other components of a diaper, such as (part of) the elasticated leg cuffs, elasticated waist band, elasticated fasteners, elasticated backsheet etc.